Lawrence Dixon and plasma in space

New Scientist July 24th page 39-41 says that in order to shield astronauts on the journey to Mars from solar wind radiation you simply put a magnet in the spacecrapft and this will create a shield round the spacecraft and keep the particles out. A second beauty is that they have found areas on the moon where the surface is protected by a shield, the shielded areas are lighter than the main surface, a spacecraft accidentally flew over one and its instruments registered the lack of charged particles. Lawrence adds, it seems the EU and plasma is winning in unexpected ways.